She smiled through her shaking. He’d been kind to her once. More than that, really. He kept the Church’s tenants even when they contradicted his nature.
Ilan eyed her gown and its embroidered vinework and her pearl-beaded slippers. “What are you doing here?”
“The Izir brought me. But I left before anything happened.”
A fresh light entered Ilan’s pale eyes. “And yet you’re here.”
He slipped a leather cuff over her wrist and snapped the leash tight.
14
Csilla
The cell floor chilled, sharp with chips of crumbled stone, and Csilla kept her knees up to her chest as she shivered against the damp. The space had a hollow carved out for lamp oil and holy books, a crusted drainage hole on the other side, and was otherwise bare. Somewhere in the walls and beneath the floors was the labyrinth of tunnels for ferrying holy relics and keeping the seal of Silgard safe. In a more peaceful time, this was one of the cells where the faithful went when they wished to give up the world in its entirety, but now it had been partially converted to house the church’s enemies, and the cells were full of people awaiting their turn for a whipping or for their family to gather enough money to pay off their sins. She’d heard that Mihály’s theories inspired petty crimes as people lost faith in the church, but this seemed far beyond people testing the limits of what they judged a sin.
She put her forehead down on her knees, surrendering to the dark and praying for calm for her rolling stomach. The church would forget about her and leave her to dissolve like the water-eaten cracks in the wall. And that would be if she were lucky.
The scrape of a door opening had her on her feet, face pressed against the flaking iron of the bars. Grunting. The thud of boots. A wet, rough slap of flesh on stone.
They were dragging in an unconscious man.
No. Even the unconscious had some movement—the twitch of an eyelid or breath at their lips.
This was a body. The light of their torches highlighted the trail of blood streaking the floor. The man yanked Csilla’s door open and deposited the corpse with a squashed thud too much like the delivery of a pig carcass to the kitchens.
What once was a man was now all fish-belly white flesh and smears of copper.
“We thought a mercy girl wouldn’t mind. Everywhere else is full.”
They’d never been full. But she had no time to reflect on that when she took in the body.
The victim was face down splayed on the stone, mole-dotted skin on depraved display. She touched her heart. They could have at least given him a blanket for dignity, and she didn’t even have a cape to offer him.
The marks along his back were still smeared, hard to see in the dim light. Corpses had never bothered her- she’d worked with the mercy crews since she could toddle, and flesh was flesh. But as she touched the sliced skin, a pulsing shiver worked its way up her spine and set her scars burning. She traced the cuts the same way the scholars had made her trace their books. That had only been finger over paper. Now on this fresh human velum, her fingers froze. The cooling body couldn’t explain the sudden frostbite twinge.
She moved to the crushed column of the victim’s throat, her small hands where the murderer’s had been, a whispered prayer to the hanged saint Angyalka on her lips. Angyalka had lived and was blessed with the visions that led to the naming of the first Incarnate, even though the bruises never faded. The blotchy purple under her fingers would be holy if it weren’t so cold.
She stiffened as footsteps sounded in the hall, and a moment later her shoulders were seized by skeletal fingers.
Ágnes.
“What are you doing?” she hissed. “There’s nothing that can be done for the man now.”
“I wanted to see.” She turned to look Ágnes in the face. “Oh. Oh no.” She looked so much worse than she had just days before. There were bluish bruises shading her skin, and her eyelids drooped. But Csilla’s gasp was too quiet, and the older woman continued, though her voice grew more hoarse with every word.
“See? And touch?” She shook Csilla’s limp hand, and the sting in the scold sent her gaze to the floor. “Is this what you’ve gotten from being with the Izir?”
“He’s stopped preaching heresy,” Csilla said, looking down. Easier to face the entire inquest branch of the clergy than the woman who raised her. “I’m on holy business.” If it involved Mihály it had to be holy, no matter what it looked like. She raised her eyes, a tiny grain of confidence rooting in her purpose. “I’m trying to save the city.” The matter of her own soul aside, Ágnes had to understand that she was trying to do something good. That she was good.
The woman’s spasming cough shook her like a crumpled fall leaf. Csilla put an arm around her.
“You’re worse. I’ll get something that can help you. Mihály—“
Ágnes waved her hand. “No.”
Csilla held Ágnes’ shoulders as she coughed again, so frail there was practically no weight against Csilla at all. How could this be the woman who’d carried her around on her hip until Csilla came waist-high and was far too old for such babying?
The new steps in the hallway were heavier.
Ilan leaned on the doorway, scowling, his collar and hems stark for their lack of decoration. He looked like any other priest, save the hellfire anger in his stare. “Csilla. And Elder Ágnes. Are you not late for prayer?”
“Aren’t you?” she asked, standing and smoothing her skirt. Csilla’s heart ached to see that Ágnes stood in front of her, still trying to offer some protection in her frailty. Too many of her few and precious breaths were being spent defending Csilla.
“I have to question her. Only questions for the moment.” He held out his hands as if the lack of a whip assured Csilla’s safety. The woman nodded, but her eyes didn’t leave Ilan as she left. As if reminding him that whatever he did, it would be seen. If not by her, then by the divine.
“What are you planning?” Ilan leaned against the iron bars, blocking the door. As if there were any way she would run.
“Me?” How did he know they were planning something? Csilla shrunk under his dissecting gaze. Perhaps it had been foolish to think the church wouldn’t know. Asten’s eyes were stamped throughout the city, seeing everything. Maybe that was more tangible than she’d realized.
“I’m just trying to help.” It sounded pointless falling from her lips and even worse when reflected in his expression.
“How was stealing my notes help?”
Of course he would have noticed. He continued before she could conjure another pale defense.
“And you didn’t kill the heretic. How long have you been working together? Since before I even found you in the street?”
